


remember me, love, when i'm reborn

by akosmia



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Past Abuse, like there's so much of it, spoilers for s08e04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-12
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-03-02 07:29:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,103
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18806542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akosmia/pseuds/akosmia
Summary: There's so much she could say right now, but it wouldn't matter. She knows she can't change his mind, no matter how hard she tries, no matter how tight she'll cling to him. She'll have to let him go, eventually, like everything else in her life. But she knows Jon is right - she's always known, after all. She only wishes he weren't.-- or, two conversations in the godswood, and the art of letting go





	remember me, love, when i'm reborn

**Author's Note:**

> listen, i don't even ship jonsa, but ... eh, it happened? i don't know how, honestly, i wasn't even sure i was going to write this, and then it turned into a 9k words monster. what can i say, i tried?  
> the first half of this fic is set during early s7, before jon leaves for dragonstone, while the other half is set during ep 8x04, though the timeline is a little bit messed up because i decided it so.  
>   
> also, i know it sounds way too modern, but really, my english is already awful as it is, so.

**(i)**

Jon finds her in the godswood.

The days are getting shorter and shorter now that winter's finally here, and the sky above Winterfell has turned a spectacular shade of pink as she sits by the frozen pond she remembers from her childhood, staring at the heart tree with its leaves as red as drops of blood.

It's familiar in a painful way - that kind of painful that tugs at your heart, takes your breath away, brings tears to your eyes despite thinking you've run out of them. She'd thought she'd been hollowed out, a broken shell of the girl she'd once been, an vast emptiness where her heart had been and nothing more - but home has a way of bringing everything out, her sorrows and pain washing over her as unrelenting as the tide, memories resurfacing just to drag her under.

She remembers a time in which the sunset over Winterfell was a sight as ordinary as her reflection in the mirror, a time in which the godswood was the only quiet place where she could hide from Arya, a time in which all of this, ( _home,_ a voice whispers, _family_ ), was taken for granted.

It feels like a lifetime has passed since then, and maybe it has. Maybe between being held hostage by monsters and being the victim of a madman, traded and used, abused and manipulated, the Sansa Stark she used to be died, only to be replaced by someone she has yet to know. She's not the same foolish girl she was back then, so eager to leave her home, so willing to walk right into the lion's den out of her own naivety, but sometimes she wishes she was.  

The night is approaching, as quiet and soft as first snow, and she can hear him even before he speaks. He's not being subtle, and a smile comes to tug at her lips, despite it all, when she thinks he probably doesn't have a single subtle bone in his body.

Something comes to brush against her legs, and her smile grows deeper as Ghost presses his snout against her gown.

"I knew I'd find you here," Jon says, softly, a few steps behind her. His voice is hesitant, and she can see him, in the back of her mind - taking a deep breath before stepping into her direction, as if pondering a war strategy, as if dealing with wildlings and traitors and battles had been way easier than talking to her. "I know you're probably mad and you don't want me here, but-"

She shakes her head. "Shut up," she tells him, finally turning into his direction. She gives him a look that could have belonged to the girl she'd once been - annoyed in a fond way, exasperation mixed with affection, just to let him know she's not really angry, not with him anyway.

Familiarity, home.

Things she never thought she'd get again. Things she could very much lose again.

Jon exhales, deeply. "I suppose you're right," he says and Sansa-

\- she can't help to _laugh_ at this, at the way he looks so contrite despite it all, the same expression he used to wear back when they were children and he was sulking in a corner while they played. There's something utterly Jon about it and it feels so familiar it takes her breath away, as memories wash over her.

It never gets old - this surprise at every turn, the memories that come, unbidden, everytime Jon looks at her.

Ghost distracts her, pressing his nose into her hand as if asking for her attention, and it feels again like something is currently tugging at her heartstring, an unknown force squeezing her heart. She crouches on the snow-covered ground to pet him, murking the hem of her pretty dress, and it feels bittersweet to think how Mother would have a fit seeing her like this right now, how Arya would never recover from the shock, how Robb would tease her and torment her for the rest of her life. She knows it's not proper and ladylike, but she doesn't think it matters anymore, and Jon is not here to reproach her for it as Septa Mordane was.

Instead, she catches him smiling as she sinks her hands into Ghost's soft fur, almost hugging the direwolf. It may be a trick of the light as the sunset lits the sky on fire, but his eyes look like they're shining.

"Would anyone else try this," he nods into Ghost's direction. "He'd rip their arm off".

Ghost doesn't look offended by his owner's words, and doesn't let out a sound, though she's not fooled by it in the slightest. His teeth are razor-sharp and he's bigger than any creature she's ever seen, and Sansa has no trouble believing Jon when he says he could rip her arm off.

And still, he melts into her touch. He's the quietest thing she's ever encountered, always so silent with his big, red eyes, and it reminds her so much of Jon, to the point she asks herself how fateful that day had been, when they had stumbled upon the direwolves and picked one for themselves.

It almost feels like Ghost had been there all along, waiting for Jon.

"What can I say?" she replies, her hands lost into Ghost's fur, her lips curved into a playful smile, her eyes set on Jon. "He loves me".

He snorts. "That's no surprise," he replies, quietly as he does anything else. "Anyone would love you".

The way he says it - easily, as a matter of fact - is even more surprising than his words, and it makes it harder for her to stand his gaze. Nobody, she thinks, has loved her in a very long time. She's been a pawn, a tool, a victim - she's been beaten and ripped apart, she's been broken beyond repair body and soul, tossed and stolen, cast aside or used for her name, for her claim on the North, for her face, and between it all she had started to believe it herself, that _that_ was all she was, all that she was worth.

But Jon says it so _simply_ , as he'd shared a truth universally known. She has to blink back a few tears, and Jon is kind enough to look away and pretend not to notice. Ghost presses his paw on her knee with surprising gentless for a creature his size, and when she raises on her feet, he stands by her, as if guarding her.

She's humbled by it.

"What are you doing here?" she asks Jon, in the end, when she trusts herself not to break down any second. Then, when he doesn't immediately reply, she adds, "You should be making preparations for your journey south, shouldn't you?"

He seems to steel himself before talking, taking a deep breath, and it feels like he's tying up his armor, as if preparing for battle, and Sansa is _tired_ \- tired of fighting, tired of losing, tired of the world conspiring to rip everything she has from her hands. She's tired of letting go, she's tired of goodbyes, tired of waking at night with her heart in her throat and panic in her lungs.

When will the gods let her rest?

"I know you don't approve of this plan," he says, then, pressing his lips together in a tight smile and nervously eyeing her, like a kid who's got into trouble. It reminds her of Bran, when he still used to climb over Winterfell and lie to Mother about it, and it still amuses her in a sad way, to think that after all Jon's been through, talking to her is what scares him the most.

She sits down on the bench, bracing herself for another fight she's not sure she wants to walk in. "You are King in the North, Jon," she reminds him, with a sad smile on her face, her mind going to previous fights, his hurtful words spoken so softly as if he hadn't really meant to hurt her. "I don't think it matters if I approve of it".

The disbelief on his face is so genuine it would be almost funny, if not incredible sad. He takes a few steps into her direction and sits down right next to her, taking her gloved hands into his with slow, reassuring movements, as if not to scare her away. She finds it almost hard to hold his gaze, but she does anyway.

"Sansa." Her name is colored by shock, but he says it so gently, almost a prayer in the godwood. _He sounds just like Father_ , she thinks, and she has to swallow a sob down. "Sansa, if it weren't for you, I'd be King of Nothing right now. Of course it does matter".

There's a fire burning in his eyes, as he stares at her, and Sansa can almost trick herself and say she can feel its warmth. Her mouth curves into a tight-lipped smile, and Jon sighs, his thumb stroking the back of her hand.

She almost wishes she weren't wearing gloves.

He looks so impossibly tired when he speaks again, and she feels the same weariness resonate in her bones. "I know I've been…"

Her eyebrow rises up, as she flashes him a sad smile. "An ass?"

She doesn't know what possesses her to be so bold - had it been Joffrey, it would have granted her a few more bruises on her back, on her face, on her arms. She doesn't want to linger on what would have happened with Ramsay. And still, even back then, she'd done it all the same - stared at the monsters right in the eyes, raised her chin high in a show of defiance, just so they'd know that wolves don't back down, just so they'd know that they hadn't broken all of her.

Jon, of course, is as far from Joffrey and Ramsay as anyone could ever be, and her words elicit a laughter from him, deep and gentle and reassuring, and she hates herself for it, but she lets out the breath she'd been holding in fear of retaliation, despite the fact that she knows he won't ever hurt her.

It's hard to let go, though, when fear is the only thing that kept you together for so long.

He's still laughing, such a pleasant sound. "Alright, I reckon I deserved that." His eyes are fond and warm when they linger on her, and she can't help but smile too, her lips curving out of their own accord. "Aye, I know I've been an ass lately. This… being King, it's way harder than I'd expected".

His words are almost a whisper, as if he were scared of being heard. She squeezes his hands, her eyes lingering on the lines of his face, the scar above his eye, the way he looks so much older than he is, as if life had clinged to his bones and worn him down. Sometimes when she looks at him, she can still see the boy he'd once been, and the place where that boy has been broken.

She wonders if he can see the same thing on her face.

"But it's no excuse," he adds, patting her hand briefly, with that sort of awkward gentleness she has learned to associate with him, before letting her go. "I wouldn't ever forgive myself if I made you feel like your counsel doesn't matter. It is the one that matters the most to me".

She sighs, staring at her hands. She balls them up into fist, grasping her skirts between her fingers as if keeping them occupied, lest he notices how much they tremble. "Then why are you doing this?" she asks, looking up at him, so impossibly tired all of the sudden. "Why are you going there, Jon?"

 _There_. Dragonstone. A world away from the North, from Winterfell, from home. From _her_. It feels like the world is trying to rip apart everything she has bleeded and suffered to build again, and if she has to fight again for it, then she will, clinging to him, to the life they have, to the home they have rebuild until the world stops trying, until they are the only ones left.

Jon won't let her, though, will he?

"Because it's the right thing to do," he says, so easily, so simply, with his deep voice and clear eyes, and he reminds her so much of their father right now, with his honor and integrity, always trying to do the right thing in a world that laughed at his attempts. It takes all her willpower to stop herself from grabbing his arm and tell him to stop being so _righteous_ for once. "Our enemy is coming, and the Wall won't hold him back forever. We have to try, Sansa. If this is the only way to save us all, then so be it".

She doesn't know what to say to that. The Others - white walkers and wights, they were the stuff of legends, the ones Old Nan used to tell them when they were sick and refused to behave properly. _The Others will come to steal you away on their pale spiders and bring you on the other side of the Wall where they will feast on your warm blood_ , she used to say. It's hard to think any of this could be true.

Jon sighs again, rubbing his jaw in a nervous gesture. "I know you think I'm a madman and sometimes I wish I was, too. It would be so much easier, wouldn't it? " he asks her, so quietly she can barely hear him, a scared little kid who grew up too fast. "But I've seen them, Sansa. I've fought them. And if I'm alive to tell it, it's not because of my skills or my bravery, it's because I was lucky."

A brief silence passes between them, and maybe it's because of his eerie words, but she can feel the cold begin to _seep_ into her bones.

"If traveling south to talk to Daenerys Targaryen can somehow help us win this fight, then I _have_ to try. I owe it to every single man, woman and child who have put their trust in me. That's a responsibility I took the moment you chose me as your King and I won't back down now".

Of course he won't. He wouldn't, even if there wasn't a chance, even if he were to fight for nothing, even if the only certainty at the end of everything were his death. That's Jon, she thinks.

A tired smile comes to tug at her lips, and she feels the familiar pain in her chest, the one she can't put into words but that seems to eat away at her heart day by day.

"You sound just like Father," she murmurs, closing her eyes for a moment and allowing herself to remember his face, the way he used to smile and even the stern gaze he reserved for Arya and her when they weren't behaving.

It pains her to realize it, but she's starting to forget how his voice sounded, or the words he used to reassure her after a nightmare. What she can't forget, though, it's the image of blood running down the steps, his head severed from his neck so easily, as if all that kept him together and alive had been nothing more than a few muscles and his will. She can still see, in the back of her mind, Ilyn Payne wiping the blood from Ice with practiced ease.

She has to breathe deeply before starting again. "I know you think it's stupid. The throne, the power, the game. I know you think it's no more than a childish squabble for who gets to sit on the most uncomfortable chair in Westeros," she tells Jon, willing her voice into firmness. "But these people… they have spent their whole life playing this game. It's real for them, and they'll kill you before you can even realize what is happening. Remember what happened to Father?"

It costs her to utter those words, and it costs Jon to hear them. It's clear to read on his face, on the way he winces, his features losing their warmth for a moment as the memory passes briefly into his mind. He's lucky, though - for him, the memory is made of words. For her, it is blood it's made of.

"I promise," he starts, after a second, with his deep voice and his solemn expression. "I'll be careful".

Sansa smiles. Jon, wonderful, thoughtful Jon, so willing to promise her impossible things - it makes her heart flutter in her chest, when he says things like that, words ripped right out of a song, and she wishes she were the same girl that she'd once been, just to believe him completely. But she isn't - she hasn't been that Sansa for a long time, and no matter how much she longs to believe him, the words still sound like a lie. The most beautiful lie in the world.

Her fingers ache to take his face into her hands, to bury her own face into his shoulder and sink into his reassuring warmth, but she stays put. "You're way too honorable and good to be careful".

He frowns, his brows furrowed together in that typical Jon expression she has seen countless times before, but there's a hint of a smile on his lips, and Sansa can feel her eyes water at the sight, and it feels so impossibly tiring, to carve herself out of steel, to make an armor out of her own heart.

It also harder than she'd thought, to stand his honest, open gaze. "How can you manage to make something so sweet sound like an insult?" he asks her, his eyebrows raised, and she lets out a breathy laugh, staring at the snow-covered ground under her feet.

She doesn't know if her shoulders are shaking from the laughter or from the effort of keeping the tears at bay. Probably from both - this moment feels like one of those songs she loved so much when she was a child, the ones that talked about knights and queens and were both beautiful and sad.

"It is a skill I took great care into mastering," she replies, then, only half jesting. The time in King's Landing, with its oppressive heat and terrible lies, still hangs over her head, and she thinks no matter how safe she'll be, the things she learned back there will always haunt her. Then, she sighs, her eyes fluttering shut for a minute as she prepares herself for her next words. When she opens her eyes again, Jon is already looking at her. It gives her the courage to tell him what she's thinking. "I was there, you know. I was in King's Landing, and I watched Father being honorable and just and good, and I watched him get his head cut off with his own sword. I will never forget it, Jon, and I have no desire to see you meet the same end".

He shudders, and his face looks so impossibly old like this as the fiery red of the sunset slowly sinks into the approaching darkness. Sansa wonders what he's thinking - if he's seeing, in the back of his mind, the image of Ned Stark's head hanging from the walls of the Red Keep. She is. Joffrey made sure she could never forget it.

"I won't," he says, in the end. In those two words she can hear everything he's not saying, and it has always been like this with him, few words and long silences, and a world of meaning hanging between them. "I won't, Sansa, I promise".

Jon, always so eager to make promises, always ready to give his soul to keep them. It reminds her of another night, another fight, another panic closing her throat and making it hard to breathe. _I'll protect you_ , he'd said back then, right before a battle he knew he couldn't win, _I promise_. But no one can make promises in this world - not Father, not Robb, not even Jon, despite the impossible miracles he seems to make happen.

"You can't promise me that. No one can." It's only after speaking those words, that she realizes how shaky her voice sounds. The tears are threatening to spill from her eyes, but she holds them back. _I must be brave_ , she thinks, _I must be brave_. But how can she be brave when everything always seems to fall apart? "Please. I told myself I would never beg another soul again, but I'm not above it now. Please don't go. Don't leave your people, don't leave your home." Then, softer, barely a whisper in the cold, winter air, "Please don't leave me".

She doesn't realize she's crying until she sees the damp spot on her skirts left by her tears. _You shouldn't cry when it's this cold_ , she hears herself think, distantly, _the tears will turn to ice on your face, just like Old Nan used to say._ But once the first few tears fall, it's impossible to hold the rest of them back and she breaks down, her sobs the only sound in the godswood, in Winterfell, in the whole world. Ghost nudges his snout against her legs, as if to reassure her, and this only makes her cry harder.

It happens so fast she doesn't even realize. One minute, she's staring at her hands, trying to fight back the sobs, and then the next something warm has wrapped around her gloved hands, and Jon is kneeling in front of her in the snow, like a knight in the songs of old, his fingers resting on top of hers.

"Sansa," he says, so sweetly, so softly, his deep voice almost a caress against her skin. She doesn't dare to meet his gaze, too afraid of letting him see her vulnerabilities maybe, or maybe too scared of reading something in his eyes that she wouldn't know how to deal with. But Jon, ever so gently, squeezes her hand, and her heart flutters in her chest - that familiar pain she's starting to get too used to. "Sansa, please, look at me".

She does, and another sob tears its way out of her throat when she catches his eyes, the utter and complete devotion so easy to read in his gaze. It reminds her of that time she had found herself swept into his arms, his hands on her back, her face buried in his shoulder, the first time she'd felt _safe_ and _warm_ and _loved_ in years.

His thumb brushes against the back of her hand, and she can feel its warmth even through the layer of the gloves. "I don't make promises I can't keep," he whispers, so simply. It's just like Jon, she muses. There's no flourish of words, no pretty sentences, no lines stolen from poetry - there's just a few words, but the tide of emotions underneath it all takes her breath away.

Her voice is still shaky, when she tries to speak. "You don't know that for sure".

Jon smiles, softly. He's still kneeling in front of her, and the first snowflakes are starting to dance in the night air, resting gently atop of his hair, brushing against his skin. Her fingers ache to brush them off. "No, I don't. But you have to trust me." He squeezes her hands again. "I have to do this. For our people, for our home. For you. Until the white walkers aren't defeated, the North will never be truly safe. It's the right thing to do".

There's so much she could say right now, but it wouldn't matter. She knows she can't change his mind, no matter how hard she tries, no matter how tight she'll cling to him. She'll have to let him go, eventually, like everything else in her life. But she knows Jon is right - she's always known, after all. She only wishes he weren't.

"You and your stupid righteousness," she comments, her voice still uneven, the tears lingering on her cheeks. Jon stares at her with his deep eyes and his frown, and it's such a familiar sight that she's about to cry again. "If you get killed because of it, I swear I'll never forgive you".

The way the laughter explodes on his face makes her heart stop for a minute, before it starts beating faster in her chest. Jon laughs, slightly throwing his head back like a kid, and she wishes he could always be like this, almost carefree. She has rarely seen him like this, the crown wearing him down, and it sparks something like warmth in her chest.

"Quite right, too," he says, breathless. "I reckon my ghost could live with that".

Her hand comes to rest against his cheek, finally. She brushes a few snowflakes off, then cradles his face, somehow wishing she could feel his skin beneath her own. She doesn't linger on that thought, but her heart stops the moment he melts into her touch.

"Let's just hope it doesn't come to that," she says, with a tired smile.

Jon leans into her hand and presses a kiss to her palm, so softly she could barely feel it, were not her senses so attuned to him. "I won't die," he replies, so quietly, as snow settles around them. "I promise".

It's mad and impossible and all around crazy. No one can promise her something like that, not even Jon, with his gentle eyes and his miracles and the warmth of his presence. No one is safe in this world, and she knows tomorrow is promised to nobody and that life will never stop being painful - and yet, she feels herself giving in, as if he had tugged again at her heart with one of his sad, pensive smiles.

She presses her lips together. "Alright," she sighs, in the end, admitting defeat. Her hand lingers on his face for a few seconds more, then she lets him go and takes a deep breath, giving him a teasing glance. "Don't do anything stupid. I know it will require a lot of effort on your part, but I hope you'll at least try".

Jon smiles again - the smile she knows so well, the one that doesn't involve his lips that much, but that reaches his eyes and makes everything seem lighter, even if for just one minute. "Shut _up_ ".

Then he sweeps her into his arms, and she lets him, sinking into his warmth, burying her head into his shoulder like she had wanted to, letting her hands cling to his cloak as if to keep him there. The snow falls softly on both of them, two black-clad figures in the immaculate godswood, as Ghost rests beside them, and it almost feels like a moment ripped right out of a song. Maybe they'll sing about it, one day.

She smiles against his neck. "Come back," she whispers, knowing he'll hear her all the same. "With dragonglass, with an army, alone… I don't care. Just come back, please. Don't make me lose you too".

Jon pulls away only to stare at her with his steadfast gaze, because of course he would - because of course he's the one to believe promises are made to be uttered looking someone in the eyes. "You won't," he says, so sure, so righteous. He leans in, and he has to raise to his tiptoes to press a kiss on her forehead, but she doesn't mock him for it. His lips are warm on her skin, and her eyes flutter closed. "You won't. I promise".

And Sansa, the Gods and fate and real life be damned, believes him.

"The North is yours until my return," he murmurs as they walk toward the castle, night falling so quickly now that winter's here. "I know you'll do even a better job than me. You've always been the clever one among us all".

It feels easy to tease him. "It didn't exactly require much effort".

"Shut _up_ ".

His laugh resounds in the godswood, and in her heart, for days even after he's gone.

**(ii)**

The smoke from the funeral pyres is still clouding up the sky, by the time Jon finds her in the godswood.

The sunset is turning the sky orange and pink, as fiery as a dragon's flame, but there's so much smoke she can't even see it, and her eyes are cast down anyway, staring at the few leaves that have fallen from the heart tree, red against the white, immaculate snow.

It reminds her of blood.

She hates this place, she realizes - the frozen pond, the heart tree with its crimson-red leaves, the snow and the eerie quiet of it all. There's nothing that brings her back to her childhood memories now, to a time in which all of this made sense - now all she can think about is the frost on Theon's face when she'd found him, broken and pale and _dead_ just a few steps from where she's sitting now. There's so much death, both all around her and inside her, and she doesn't know how to live again.

It's painful.

She reckons it will never stop being painful.

Jon's steps are hesitant as always, and she can feel some kind of nervous energy radiating from him, the same kind of nervousness he's always reserved for her. He's stared Death in the face more time than she could even count, died for it and came back and faced Death again, and still, he's scared of her. It makes her both cry and smile, and she has to twist her gloved fingers into her skirts to keep them occupied.

She doesn't know if she wants to slap him or hug him.

"I know you wish to be alone right now," he says, with his deep voice and his tentative words and the gentleness she has learned to recognize as his, and she can hear what he's not actually saying out loud. _I know you want to be alone._ _But you shouldn't._ "I can leave".

 _Neither should you_ , that's the reply to his silent words, right there on her lips, but she swallows them down as she turns into his direction.

He's a black-clad figure at the edge of her vision. He looks tired - his face is impossibly old and weary, his shoulders slumped and there's still a scratch on his cheek. The red of his blood is the only spot of color in his otherwise dark attire, and when he looks at her, there's nothing but infinite sadness. She misses the way he'd smiled at the feast, before everything happened again, before reality would catch on him, before promises and obligations and the truth came to stand between them.

His face is so _familiar_. He stills reminds her so much of her father that it comes as a second thought, the notion that he's not her brother at all.

Her heart flutters in her chest, and she can feel herself giving in.

She shakes her head. "Stay".

It's almost a command. She doesn't have the authority to command him, not really, but Jon doesn't care about all of this - formalities, titles, names - and, it surprises her to realize it, neither does she. Once she would have cared, she thinks with some sort of sadness deep in her chest that feels like mourning, and it would have made the difference between order and chaos in her mind. But it has been way too long and the world is too chaotic to even imagine she could put an order to it, and she's _tired_. Titles and names and formalities - they don't really make the difference, when Death is staring right back at you.

He sits right next to her, not uttering a word. She can tell he's as tired as she is, the weariness seeping into his bones, flowing into his blood, occupying the small space between their bodies. She can't imagine him fighting another war, can't imagine him leading another army. He should rest, her traitorous heart tells her, he should stay here. _With me_.

"I'm sorry about Edd," she says, in the end, after a few seconds of silence. Jon lets out a shuddering breath, and she is possessed by the sudden urge to wrap her arms around him. She doesn't. "He was very kind to me at Castle Black. He- he was a good man".

Jon nods, silently. There's so much on his face, so many fleeting emotions, but when he speaks, his voice is firm. "He was. And now his watch is ended," he says, quietly. His words are the only thing she can hear for miles, as if the rest of Winterfell (or, what remains of it) didn't exist. "I'm sorry about Theon, too. I know you cared about him".

Her eyes flutter closed, just to avoid the tears threatening to run down her cheeks. She won't cry, not again - but still, it feels like it's the only thing she manages to do these days. Grieving, mourning, missing someone who'll never come back - it all feels like a knife right to her heart, and she doesn't know how she manages to keep breathing, or how she's still alive.

Jon's hand comes to rest upon hers, and she intertwines their fingers without meeting his gaze. It feels familiar and reassuring and though it does nothing to hold her grief back, she's glad he's here, out of the stubbornness of his stupid, righteous heart.

"I did," she confirms. It sound so _void_ , but how can she even begin to put into words something so big? She didn't just _care_ about Theon. It feels like a part of her soul has been ripped away from her all over again, and she asks herself when she'll ever stop losing pieces. "Not so long ago, I thought I had nothing left to lose, not even myself. I was too broken to think there was something of me left to lose in the first place, Ramsay had made sure of that." Jon tenses next to her, and she's reminded of the moment right in the courtyard of Winterfell, when he'd punched Ramsay again and again and again, until he'd noticed her. She squeezes his hand. "I used to sit here, in the Godswood, in my own home, and thought about killing myself. In my thoughts, I'd throw myself from the highest tower".

She'd thought it poetic, back then. Things had turned awful and bitter for her family when Bran had fallen from that damned tower - how fitting for everything to end with her meeting the same fate. Of course, Ramsay would have never allowed her to - but that hadn't ever stopped her from thinking about it, like idly spinning a needle between her fingers.

Her words are met with a stunned silence, and she can feel, almost a living thing, his shock, the crushing impact of it to Jon's heart. He turns into her direction and she holds her breath for a moment, before he squeezes her hand back with all his strength, almost bruising her fingers. She welcomes the dull ache of it - it makes her feel alive.

His voice is so sad, when he whispers, "You never told me".

When she turns into his direction, his eyes are set on her, and she can't help but flash him a brief, sad smile. "How could I ever tell all of that to _you_?" she asks him, but she doesn't expect him to reply and she knows he understands by the way he presses his lips together and looks at her with immense sadness. How could she ever tell Jon, who was so eager to promise her he'd protect her, that sometimes she wished she'd died back in Winterfell, just to stop feeling Ramsay's hands on her even in her memories? How can she begin to explain him that, even now, sometimes she lingers too close to the fire just to burn herself a new skin that he hasn't touched? Jon would have  understood, even back there, of course he would have - but it would have broken his heart, and Sansa had been done with broken hearts.

He gulps, staring at their joined hands. His grip is lighter, but his gaze feels like a dagger to her heart. "I am sorry".

She shakes her head, her fingers grasping his more tightly as she turns to stare at the heart tree again. "Theon saved me," she continues, her voice barely a whisper in the approaching darkness. "Even before I decided to save myself, he saved me. He killed for me, and he was willing to face Ramsay's men for me. No sword, five against one and no hope of coming back alive, just to save me." A tear leaves her eye even as she tries her best to stifle her sobs, and falls on the elaborate fabric of her gown. Jon holds her tighter, inches closer to her, his presence as warm as ever. "He's the reason we're standing here today. He was the first thing I had to lose, again. Before I had myself, I had him. That's a debt I will never repay".

She can still see it in her memories - the hint of his smile when they'd looked at each other over their soup. She can't believe he's gone, this time irreversibly so, just after finding him again. She wants to scream at him and be angry with him, but what difference would it make? He'd still be dead.

"He saved us all," Jon murmurs, his voice always so solemn. He may not be Ned Stark's son, after all, but she can still see traces of him in his face, in the way he speaks, in the things he says. _I've never been a Stark_ , he'd said in this same godswood earlier, but how can even utter those words, when everything about him screams Stark? "He fought for us, he bought Arya time. He died with honor".

Her heart aches again, but she knows now it will never stop - it will always feel like this, like everything she has is temporary, and a sliver of glass was lodged just between her ribs, ready to pierce her heart at any sudden movements. _That's life_ , she tells herself, _that's the price you have to pay. It hurts to be alive._

"Yes, he did." Her voice is so sad even to her own ears. "And what good does it? Honor can't bring back the people you loved." Then, softer, almost a plea in this cruel, merciless winter, "Please don't go. Please, please don't leave".

It's the hardest thing she's ever done - turning into his direction and looking at him fully, as if drinking in the sight of his familiar face, his solemn eyes, the serious curve of his mouth, even the old crease between his eyebrows that reminds her of childhood. She doesn't know how she manages not to cry, but she holds her chin high, even as she begs and pleads and clings to him.

Jon sighs, his face so tired and weary, and it's so easy to read on his features that he doesn't want to leave and doesn't want to stay - and he probably doesn't know what he wants at all.

He closes his eyes, breathing deeply, as if preparing himself for a fight - the moment right before the battle when everything is calm, before the world erupts into chaos. "I can't stay here".

It's her turn to squeeze his hand and prepare herself for a fight. "Of course you can," she replies, the sliver of glass coming dangerously close to her heart now, ready to stab her. "I don't care who you are. Snow, Stark, Targaryen, it doesn't matter. You're still Jon. Please don't go, not again".

It's the same old fight they've had more times than she can count, and she knows she can't win - not against Jon, not against his righteousness, not against his honesty and integrity and what makes him Jon. For a moment, her mind goes to Cersei - when they'd huddled together waiting for the battle in Blackwater Bay to end in one way or another, and Cersei had laughed at her, drunk as she was, telling her she had more chance of seducing Stannis's horse than the man.

For a moment, as different as all of this is, she can finally understand what she meant back then. She can't keep Jon here, no matter how hard she tries, and still, she _has_ to try.

"I have to do this," Jon says. "It's the right thing to do".

It's a practiced script by now, and they both know their lines far too well. She hates him for his righteousness, as much as she'd hated Father back in the days, after he'd died and left her on her own in King's Landing. The anger then had faded, subdued by the pain and sorrow and the ache in her chest, but now it resurfaces again when Jon says those words. It reminds her so much of her father despite how much he claims not to be a Stark and she wants to punch him, wants to hit him, wants to hurt him as much as he's hurting her right now, even if she knows he's stronger than her and her punches would feel like caresses anyway.

"You _don't_ _have_ to do this," she hears herself say, her voice caught between broken and forceful, her anger mixing with her fear. "I'm tired of seeing men die for their honor. Father, Robb, even Theon- they all died in their honor's name. Not you, please. I can't bear to lose you too".

She's still pleading him - a litany of _please_ falling from her lips - when he lets go of her, just to hold her face into his hands, his thumb lingering on her cheek, his fingers winding in her braided hair. She doesn't realize she's crying until he comes to brush the tears off her face.

He looks so certain when he speaks. "You won't," he whispers, so close to her, his presence so warm and solid and real, and she can't think of him gone and dead and so far away from her. "You won't lose me, Sansa, I promise. But this is something I have to do. I made a promise. She… she helped us and sacrificed half of her army. She risked her life for the North and we're standing here because of her. We owe it to her".

Her hands find their way to his cloak, fingers digging into the fabric as the darkness starts to fall on the godswood. "We almost _died_ ," she reminds him, her voice trembling on her lips, her fingers clawing at his cloak. "We almost lost everything, you can't-"

Jon presses a kiss to her forehead, wipes the tears from her face, holds her into his arm, as gently as ever. "I'll come back," he whispers into her skin, reassuring as he's always been. "I'll come back, I swear".

"You _won't_." The words tear their way out of her throat, and when she utters them, Jon goes completely still into her arms and looks at her with surprise on his features. His hands fall at her shoulders and this moment seem to last for an eternity, before she speaks again. "What do you think will happen in King's Landing?"

His arms finally fall away and he lets her go, furrowing his brow into that familiar expression that makes her heart twist into her ribcage. "What do you mean?"

Her voice is still broken, but she wipes her tears and tries to steel herself as she's always done, carving herself out of ice like the queens in the songs of old. "You're the rightful heir to the Seven Kingdoms, your claim is stronger than hers," she murmurs, quietly, her chest heavy with the sobs she's not letting out. "Do you really think you'll survive this battle?"

Jon - wonderful, honorable Jon - stares at her in disbelief, his eyes wide and his lips parted, as if she had just whispered him a terrible secret. "How can you even think something like that?"

The words come unbidden to her mind, but she doesn't speak them. _Sometimes when I try to understand a person’s motives I play a little game. I assume the worst_. But how can she ever explain it to him? How can she ever explain that she's just what people and monsters and time and circumstances had made her to be? How can she tell him that yes, maybe she's a monster just like the rest of them, but she had to become one, before the other monsters could swallow her whole? How can she ever explain him that being a monster is a price she'll happily pay, if it means keeping him - her family - safe?

It's the way he looks at her, as if seeing her for the first time, that breaks her, but she keeps going all the same. "I'm just trying to keep you safe," she says. "You're a bigger threat to her throne than Cersei could ever be and she won't ever be safe until you're taken care of".

 _It would be so easy_ , she thinks, _to let you die in the Last War, celebrating you as a hero, while you're wrapped safely in your shroud._

Jon shakes his head, as if trying to wrap his mind around it. "I don't want the throne," he says, with the utmost sincerity in his voice, and her heart twists again in her chest, the shard of glass so painful, breaking the skin between her ribs. "I've never wanted it".

He'd never wanted anything - he'd never even wanted to become King in the North. He'd just wanted to come home and be safe and be Jon again, hadn't he? She thinks she was right, back then, when she'd told him he was too good to be careful, too good for this wretched world - a world that chews you up and spits you back out in pieces, and it's up to you to build yourself back.

Her lips curve in a sad smile, when she speaks. "Do you think it makes a difference for her?"

Jon runs a hand through his hair, rubs his jaw, takes a deep breath. He suddenly stands up, as if her proximity had suddenly become poisonous, and stares at her with trembling hands and fire in his eyes. "Why?" he asks her, then, his voice full of all the things he probably doesn't know how to say out loud. "Why are you so determined to hate her?"

"Because I'm scared!" she shouts. She doesn't realize she's standing too until she comes face to face with him and there's almost no distance between the two of them. "Because Tyrion and Varys and everyone else, they're all scared of her! Haven't you noticed how everyone seem to tiptoe around her as if displeasing her meant getting burned alive? Is this the Queen you want to serve? A tyrant whose only weapon is fear?"

"You're speaking of _treason_ ".

"And aren't you scared of seeing me burnt for it?" She's breathless when she finishes, and so is Jon. They have been shouting in the deserted godswood so _loudly_ and she wonders if someone has heard her, if she'll get burned all the same, in the end. She breathes deeply, trying to calm herself, but she can feel the tears in her eyes and the trembling in her hands. It reminds her of another fight, right before the battle against Ramsay, when they'd screamed at each other their fears, knowing they were going to die. It seems so long ago, and everything was easier, somehow. "If the only way she can get obedience is through fear, then she's no better than Ramsay or Cersei or her own father".

Jon frowns, and he looks like she had just stabbed him. A million emotions pass on his face, and he looks like he wants to tell her everything, say something, even just insult her, but he shakes his head and rubs his jaw again. "Then what do you suggest?" he asks her, in the end, with his voice grave and deep and no gentleness in his eyes. "To let her march South on her own and then deal with whomever wins this fight? You do realize you sound like Cersei?"

She does. She's always known, after all, even when she was a kid and her biggest fear was to look into the mirror and see Cersei staring back at her. But no one leaves King's Landing whole, and that's where Cersei and Littlefinger had found a way into her mind - from the cracks in her armor, from the place where she'd been broken.

 _I was a kid_ , she wants to tell him like she has wanted to tell Arya and the whole North, _I was a kid and my family had left me alone in King's Landing and I did what I had to do to survive. We learn where we can, we let parts of us die so we can live._

Instead, she straightens her shoulders and looks away, staring at the blood-red leaves in front of her. "In the crypts, when the dead rose, I saw Rickon," she tells him, in the end, shuddering at the memory of her baby brother, his eyes as blue and as unforgiving as ice. "His corpse, at least. He- maybe he knew it was me, or maybe he didn't, but he tried to-" She has to breathe deeply again, clawing at her skirts to find purchase. "I had to stab him with a dragonglass dagger".

If Jon is confused by this sudden change of topic, he doesn't show it, and instead breathes deeply too. "It wasn't your fault," he tells her, still trying to reassure her after everything. "It wasn't Rickon".

She swallows and nods, turning into his direction and looking at him - truly looking at him. He's such a sad, weary man, and she's startled to realize how much he means to her - how this stranger she'd barely spared a thought for during her childhood has found a way into her heart, into her soul, and now she's ready to risk everything to keep him safe.

"I had to bury Rickon _twice_. Arya is gone. The Gods know where she went and if she'll ever come back. And Bran- well, Bran is not really Bran anymore, isn't he? It's just us now".

The words are bitter on her tongue, and Jon looks at her with his pensive gaze and familiar frown, and she wishes it were simpler. She wishes she could bury her head into his shoulder again, and let him reassure her and feel his warmth.

But nothing will ever be that simple again.

"Does asking you not to risk your life for someone else's cause turn me into Cersei? Then so be it," she says, her chin held high, because she won't falter now, not after everything she's said. Jon stares at her with his deep eyes, and he looks even sadder somehow. "Stay. You're the only family I have left".

Jon's voice is barely a whisper, when he replies. "I'm not your family".

The sliver of glass lodged just between her ribs pierces her skin and buries itself into her heart. She'd been willing to stand it all - being called selfish and cruel, made feel like a monster, compared to Cersei. It would have been worth it, it wouldn't have mattered in the end. She'd heard worse, after all, she'd been through worse.

But this - this is what undoes her. In her mind, she falls to the ground, buried in her pretty dress like in a shroud, as snow starts to fall on her. In her mind, she stays there for the rest of her life, letting time claim her slowly.

She doesn't, though. She bows her head and presses her lips together in a tight smile that doesn't reach her eyes, but stands tall and straight, every bit of a Stark. "No," she convenes, in the end, cocking her head to the side as if to study him. "You're hers".

She steps again into his direction with deliberate calm. Her hands find their way to his face and she cradles it, fingers so delicate against his skin. "You're right, I won't lose you," she whispers, as the first tears start to fall from her eyes. "I already lost you the day I let you sail for Dragonstone, didn't I?"

Jon swallows audibly and melts into her touch still, as if he hadn't just destroyed her life. "Sansa-"

She shakes her head, smiling sadly. "Shh," she tells him. "It will be okay".

It won't. They both know it, but they can pretend for a moment - after all, she's learned to lie better than everyone else, and even if he's terrible at it, she's way more than good enough for both of them.

He puts his arms around her for one last time and she sinks into his shoulder, letting his warm presence fill her broken heart once again. His touch is still gentle, his body still so solid and real, his voice still the rumble she knows so well. He whispers her name over and over again, and she knows there's no way to come back from this, and even if he somehow manages to survive this stupid, wretched war it will never be the way it used to be before everything happened, but she tries to believe for a moment. She knows how to tell the most beautiful lies in the world, after all.

When she pulls away, she presses a kiss to his forehead, her eyes fluttering shut for just one moment. Jon lets her do it, his hands still lingering on her back, his fingers still digging into the fabric of her cloak as if clinging to the last of his memories.

"I wish you good fortune in the wars to come, Lord Snow," she murmurs, in the end, finally letting him go.

His fingers take an eternity to fall away from her cloak, and it feels like they're taking a piece of her heart with them. His eyes are sad and old when he stares back at her and takes a step back. "Thank you, Lady Stark".

His voice resounds in the Godswood, and in her heart, for years even after he's dead.

 


End file.
